Motion in English Synod to Recognize ACNA: TLC 7.11.09

First published in The Living Church

A private member’s motion asking the Church of England to recognize the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has been submitted to the General Synod of the Church of England. While the motion will not come up for debate at the current meeting of Synod, it serves to sharpen the focus of the 76th General Convention on the consequences of backing away from the 2006 pledge made with Resolution B033.

Synod is meeting in York from the July 10-13. On July 10, a private member’s motion was submitted asking for a debate on the Church of England’s formal relationship with the ACNA. To be considered for debate, a private members motion must receive the support of 100 members of synod. Approximately 75 members have so far endorsed the motion.

Traditionally only one or two such motions are considered at each session of Synod, and in creating the agenda for forthcoming session, the Synod’s Business Committee generally looks to the number of signatures received in order to set the priority for debate.

Questions were also put to the Chairman of the House of Bishops and Chairman of the Ministry Division from members on the attitude of the House of Bishops to the ACNA. The Bishop of Bristol, the Rt. Rev. Michael Hill, told synod the House of Bishops there was no “representation” by the House of Bishops at the installation of the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan as Archbishop of the ACNA, and so far the bishops had not considered the question of the Church of England’s relationship with the ACNA.

But the Bishop of Durham, the Rt. Rev. N.T. Wright, told Synod the House of Bishops’ Theology Committee had agreed on July 10 to study the ACNA’s constitution and canons at their fall meeting.

Who had the authority to recognize the ACNA was not clear, Bishop Hill said, but would likely first be considered by the bishops.

The press by conservative members of General Synod for recognition of the ACNA as a formal part of the Anglican Communion comes the day after Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams urged General Convention not to back away from B033. At the July 9 Eucharist, Archbishop Williams thanked the Episcopal Church for its invitation to Anaheim, and “to share something of my mind with you; and so thank you too for your continuing willingness to engage with the wider life of our Communion.

“I do realize that this engagement has been, and still is, costly for different people in different ways,” he said. “Some feel impatient, some feel compromised, some feel harassed or undervalued, or that their good faith has been ungraciously received.”

The archbishop said he had come to California with “hopes and anxieties,” stating “I hope and pray that there won’t be decisions in the coming days that could push us further apart.”

However, he refrained from saying what the consequences might be of repudiating B033. The move to recognize the ACNA put forward by conservative members of General Synod appears to answer that question.